


All in a Blue Hoodie

by Skry_Cat



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Comfort, Let me repeat that, NOT MAXVID, and anyone who thinks there is, bro I don't know how to tag, college age Max, get off my case, have some heartwarming Dadvid stuff, is welcome to fight me, there's nothing romantic in this thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 02:40:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14154873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skry_Cat/pseuds/Skry_Cat
Summary: Max is getting ready to go to college. He finds a box of old relics - and so much more. (IS THAT VAGUE ENOUGH FOR YOU!?)





	All in a Blue Hoodie

            Max really thought graduation was when David had hit his peak of emotional display. The grown man, now with the first few flecks of white peppering his fiery hair, had cried more than the moms in the crowd. And despite being the only family Max had to mention at his graduation, somehow David’s cheering had been the loudest and most stadium-filling when his name was called and he crossed the stage. He had given a snarky, half smirk-half tip of the chin for a smile when David stepped up to take his picture with the diploma.

            He had been so swept up in emotion that none of the pictures really turned out right, blurred and shaky. Max shrugged it off and proceeded into his summer with all the slothly grace of a soon-to-be college freshman.

 

            But then the day to move out to college came.

 

            David was downstairs, getting the car ready for the six-hour drive to the university. Max had pulled one last box out of his closet to skim through for college-worthy valuables to take with him. As soon as he dislodged the box from its designated corner, the flaps swished open and a wave of forest-scented dust hit him. Max coughed as he put the box down on the bed and brushed away the dust from his eyes before looking inside.

            There was the blue hoodie. His eyes widened. He’d tossed that thing aside on the last day of camp, when his parents decided to show up near midnight to pick him up. They had been fighting like rabid dogs and blaming him for things right off the bat. David had stood up for him then and gotten a black eye and a “you can have him then!” as a result. That blue hoodie had represented the one thing his parents had ever paid attention to for so long. Max nearly burned it that same night.

            Yet, when he had stripped it off, back in the counselor cabin, the scent back then had brought back a whole other flood of something else. He couldn’t just burn it after that. He had asked David to just throw it away or something and then gone to sulk and fall asleep.

            Eight years later, that same mix of emotions came crashing back into his life as he looked down at his old hoodie. And for a moment, all that swirling torrent of emotion pivoted on one fact – what he felt now as he looked at the tattered blue thing was positive. Max shifted the hoodie aside to find the camp photo from that year beneath it. The corner of his lips tugged up, looking at the people smiling out from the photo. David sure had mellowed with years. He had quit his job as a camp counselor a year after adopting Max – and taken on a job as a teacher. It was a steadier income, an income he could use to support a son through school.

            They had fought about that the night David told him. Max hadn’t understood it then, why he was so offended and angry about it. Now, with the reminiscent scent in his thoughts and the picture of a counselor more bright-eyed than any of the campers, he thought he understood a little better. David thought he was worth sacrificing for. He smiled and put the picture down, going for the next thing in the box. He pulled out a bag of pogs, one of Nikki’s finds that she’d given him to remember her by when they parted ways.

            He and Nikki had texted for a while after camp. But distance and school did their things and soon the texts became blue-moon emails to catch up by. Then they’d actually gotten facebook and had reconnected more. She looked like she was doing well – playing every sport available at her school and planning to go to college for wildlife studies or something. He put the bag of pogs down next to the picture, laughing at the memory of her biting David on day one. He hadn’t realized then that her sense of adventure would be so infectious.

            Next out of the box was an old graphing calculator. Niel had laughed nervously when he gave it to Max. He’d sworn the thing wouldn’t go rogue again. Max raised an eyebrow and hit the power button. The poor old technology gasped to life for a solid three seconds. “Hello, I’m Niel Schp…i….e…l…..”.

            It gasped back out, whatever reserve power that battery had clung to for eight years fizzling out as soon as it started. According to social media, Niel was set to attend the top engineering school in the fall – on a full ride scholarship of all the annoying things, for developing the most advanced AI with basic materials ever found at a school science fair. Niel never learned, and now he would have access to actually advanced equipment.

            There were a few other things in the box too. A beaten up, hand drawn pamphlet for Preston’s play. The broken pair of “cool sunglasses” Ered had given Nikki. A drawing of innocently questionable material from Dolf. An amulet Nerris had given him, meant to ward off arcana and bring +1 dexterity. One of Harrison’s conjured dice. It had taken him all of the rest of camp to figure out how to conjure those back and the first thing he’d done was slam one down in Max’s hand with a puffed-out chest and the declaration that he’d finally figured out how to control the magic. Max carefully put the dice down, remembering some of the other magic-related events of camp that were less pleasant.

            Looking at the assortment of knick knacks scattered on the bed, Max blinked.

            The day he’d gotten all of these things, he’d still been too consumed with the assumption that his parents would pick him up last that he hadn’t even really thought anything of why people had given him these things. But it hit him now with the force of a school bus driven by the quartermaster. They had wanted him to remember them.

            He looked at the items as though seeing them for the first time. His eyes widened, and he felt something profound in his chest. They had all noticed him, all cared enough to remember him as part of their time at camp. Despite everything he had said and done, or not said and not done, they had positive memories associated with him. Somehow, they had found something glittering gold in the midst of his dark storm of a time.

            Max picked up the picture again, choking back a sob as he looked into all their eyes.

            It was them.

            They were the reason he couldn’t throw away that stupid blue hoodie. They were the forest-tinted scent that swirled with positivity in the dust of the box. They were the first people he’d cared about after he stopped caring about his parents. And they were the first people he associated positive memories with since the last time his parents had allowed him to just be a kid. Max picked up the hoodie, clutching both hoodie and picture close, burying his face in the musty fabric.

            It smelled so good.

            “Max? Are you ok?”

            Max turned on his heel to find David at his door, face filled with concern. And Max was suddenly vividly aware of the tears streaming down his face. He wiped these away on the sleeve of the green hoodie he was wearing – the one David bought him last Christmas. “This never happened!” he echoed age old words. “Seriously, I will murder you if this ends up online!”

            David’s eyes widened in shock, but one look at the blue in Max’s hands and he understood. He gave Max the same old smile as back then. “Okay, Max. You ready to go?”

            Max nodded and turned away, shoving the hoodie in his backpack and repacking the box to shove into the corner of the closet again. He left the photo on the bed. David would probably like to find that one later when he came in the room to cry about him being gone at school. He clambered down the stairs after David, pilling into the car and starting the long drive.

            About an hour in, he finally looked away from the passing landscapes outside. “Hey, David?”     

            “Yes, Max?”

            A long moment of silence and then – “Thanks. You know, for everything.”

            David took his eyes off the road for a second to smile at Max. “Max?”

            “Yeah, David?”

            “You’re welcome.”

             

**Author's Note:**

> No, I don't have a proof reader. No I didn't re-read my own stuff.  
> This was a one shot thing I did to get the ole writing juices flowing.


End file.
